Hi Bruno,
Thanks for the test images. The reason that PTuncrop does not work is
that the TIFF files lack full image records.
What should the behaviour of PTuncrop be in this case?
1. Force the user to specify full size of the image as a parameter?
2. Force the full size to be offset + cropped_size (in each
dimension)?
2 is easy to implement, but I think 1 is the proper option, given that
TIFFs have to be "compatible" (same size, same depth) to be "blended".
Bruno> On Mon 02-Oct-2006 at 13:06 -0700, Daniel M. German wrote:
>>
Bruno> Unfortunately ImageMagick messes-up the cropped TIFF offsets so I
Bruno> was going to use PTuncrop to convert them to normal TIFFs (assuming
Bruno> it works on 16bit images, untested).
>>
>> It should work. If not, I'll fix it.
Bruno> Here are a couple of TIFFs that choke PTuncrop:
Bruno> http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/photos/cropped-tiff/
Bruno> I get this message:
PTuncrop Version 2.8.5pre3 , by Daniel M German
Source image is not a cropped tiff
Bruno> One is deflate compressed output from nona and the other has been
Bruno> opened with cinepaint and saved with no compression. Both are
Bruno> 16bit per channel.
Bruno> --
Bruno> Bruno
Bruno> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruno> Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
Bruno> Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier
Bruno> Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
Bruno> http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642
Bruno> _______________________________________________
Bruno> PanoTools-devel mailing list
Bruno> PanoTools-devel@...
Bruno> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/panotools-devel
--
Daniel M. German "The greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in insidious encroachment
by men of zeal,
well-meaning
Louis Brandeis -> but without understanding."
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

Hi Erik,
> Hello,
>
> sorry for posting off topic. The main list wasn't of much help...
>
> Is there someone who understands spherical coordinate transformations
> - especially the rotation of euler angles (this is what we call yaw,
> roll and pitch). I need to do the calculation that is done f.e. in
> PTGui, there called "numerical transform".
I guess Joost wants to keep the secret ;-)
What you need to do is not modify the individual yaw, roll and pitch values
(as you have noticed), but use transform them into one entity, like a
rotation matrix, a rodriguez vector, or a quaternion.
So the steps I would propose are:
1. transform rpy into a rotation matrix (3x3): M = rpy2rmat(r,p,y)
2. Multiply the rotation matrix with whatever transformation matrix:
M_new = T*M;
3. extract yaw, roll pitch from M_new.
Operation 1 is at least partly in the panotools source code, in the math.c
and adjust.c files, it is however split over multiple functions and a bit
hard to comprehend what it is really doing.
Operations 2 and 3 are not required by panotools and are probably not
implemented.
The only really tricky part is to find out what kind of euler coordinates
panotools uses, since there are 12 different ways the rotations angles can
be applied, and everybody seems to call their particular scheme euler angles.
The required formulas can then be found in
http://ai.stanford.edu/~diebel/attitude.html
I can try to figure out what kind of rpy convention panotools uses.
> In practice: I have the position of an image relative to an extracted
> floor cube face and need to pitch it down to the bottom of the
> equirect from which the cube face was extracted previously. The goal
> is automatic nadir stitching.
Ah, please let us know of the script/application, when its finished :-)
ciao
Pablo

Hello,
sorry for posting off topic. The main list wasn't of much help...
Is there someone who understands spherical coordinate transformations
- especially the rotation of euler angles (this is what we call yaw,
roll and pitch). I need to do the calculation that is done f.e. in
PTGui, there called "numerical transform".
In practice: I have the position of an image relative to an extracted
floor cube face and need to pitch it down to the bottom of the
equirect from which the cube face was extracted previously. The goal
is automatic nadir stitching.
I assume that yrp remapping in pano12 uses the same operation, hence
I would be even grateful if someone pointed me to the relevant source
code position(s)...
best regards
--
Erik Krause
Offenburger Str. 33
79108 Freiburg

On Mon 02-Oct-2006 at 13:06 -0700, Daniel M. German wrote:
>
> Bruno> Unfortunately ImageMagick messes-up the cropped TIFF offsets so I
> Bruno> was going to use PTuncrop to convert them to normal TIFFs (assuming
> Bruno> it works on 16bit images, untested).
>
>It should work. If not, I'll fix it.
Here are a couple of TIFFs that choke PTuncrop:
http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/photos/cropped-tiff/
I get this message:
PTuncrop Version 2.8.5pre3 , by Daniel M German
Source image is not a cropped tiff
One is deflate compressed output from nona and the other has been
opened with cinepaint and saved with no compression. Both are
16bit per channel.
--
Bruno

On Saturday, October 14, 2006 at 8:53, yuval levy wrote:
> thanks for the warning, I passed it on to the French
> Photopanorama list where people were discussing
> QuickTime alternative.
FreePV is working - although there are quirks. But it's 0.1 and very
promising...
best regards
--
Erik Krause
Resources, not only for panorama creation:
http://www.erik-krause.de/

Hello Thomas
--- Thomas Rauscher <pano@...> wrote:
> No wonder because its a hacked version of QT
thanks for the warning, I passed it on to the French
Photopanorama list where people were discussing
QuickTime alternative.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Hello Yuval,
on Saturday, October 14, 2006, 12:01:00 you wrote:
yl> <http://www.codecguide.com/download_qt.htm&gt;
yl> reports on the French Photopanorama lists say it
yl> displays QTVRs in the browser.
No wonder because its a hacked version of QT (with embedded Pro key)
and some iTunes DLLs removed. For this reason no source code can be
available. I would doubt that this is legal.
MfG,
Thomas.

--- Pablo d'Angelo <pablo.dangelo@...> wrote:
> I just wanted to say that it requires more than
> one or two days of work.
Thank you, I start to see that. I read the QTVR part
of the Apple doc. I tried to parse a simple QTVR file
to relate what I read to the file from the real world
and I realize this is something that will take more
time than expected.
> Also, there has been panocube, for which a linux
> version is available. It is however not open-source,
> but probably its easy for the author to port to
> whatever OS you're interested in.
I am in email contact with Andrew Jakowleff. He is
currently busy porting panocube to Mac OSX PPC. He
will give me an estimate of the effort required to
port panocube to FreeBSD after that. Panocube has the
advantage that it is not QuickTime dependent. It is
however still PTStitcher dependent and Andrew is
testing PTMender as a replacement.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

yuval levy schrieb:
> --- Pablo dAngelo <Pablo.dAngelo@...> wrote:
>> For the FreePV viewer, I had the pleasure to
>> improved the basic QTVR parser shipped with PangeaVR
>> to read most QTVR files encountered in the wild.
>
> what I need is to *write* a QTVR, not to read it.
I understood correctly. However, it sounded like you like to hear an opinion
from somebody how knows the QTVR file format a little. And I just wanted to
say that it requires more than one or two days of work.
>> Hmm, but maybe Thomas can provide you with a version
>> of the pano2qtvr backend for your usecase?
>
>
> AFAIK pano2qtvr depends on QuickTime which is not
> available on the machine I want to run this on.
Also, there has been panocube, for which a linux version is available. It is
however not open-source, but probably its easy for the author to port to
whatever OS you're interested in.
ciao
Pablo

--- "Daniel M. German" <dmg@...> wrote:
> I would suggest you start by scanning a QTVR file,
> just outputing the names of the different records.
> It will help you understand the format.
Good suggestion. I have just created a simple cubic
QTVR and will reverse engineer it :-)
> It will be great if you are able to create a php
> QTVR script. It will
> be easy to add support for it withing panotools.
Aldo Hoeben has a more generic QTVR parsing tool to
extract the cubefaces from the QTVR for display in
SPi-V. This is far more than what I need.
For me QTVR is output only. I don't want to read QTVR,
I leave that to QuickTime. I want to transform
panoramas from other formats to QTVR for displaying
purposes only.
> The TIFFs are created as part of the processing (by
> PTmender). Even if
> the output is PNG or JPG, a bunch of TIFFs are
> created.
So TIFF is PTmender's internal format? As long as it
can read its own TIFFs, that's OK :-) I had bad
experiences lately with the pano12.dll not being able
to process TIFFs produced by ImageMagick. This is why
I would prefer to use a less quirky format for the
exchange between applications.
Another question about ptmender: from which version of
the libpano12 is it included? I have downloaded and
compiled 2.7.0.3 (from the freebsd ports collection)
and I find no PTMender...
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

--- Pablo dAngelo <Pablo.dAngelo@...> wrote:
> For the FreePV viewer, I had the pleasure to
> improved the basic QTVR parser shipped with PangeaVR
> to read most QTVR files encountered in the wild.
what I need is to *write* a QTVR, not to read it.
> Hmm, but maybe Thomas can provide you with a version
> of the pano2qtvr backend for your usecase?
AFAIK pano2qtvr depends on QuickTime which is not
available on the machine I want to run this on.
My goal is to create the QTVR file from other formats
without using QuickTime. Not to read QTVR as input.
IMO QTVR is a one way street (not to say a dead end).
Good for output (to display in QuickTime on the
computers that can) but no good for input/edit/long
term storage.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

--- Erik Krause <erik.krause@...> wrote:
> Fisheye support is much more important!
I second that.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

On Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 5:09, Daniel M. German wrote:
> Now, not all these formats are supported in the Linux version of
> PTstitcher (which I have used as a reference for PTmender). Compared
> to Linux PTsticher, these are the formats missing:
>
> QTVR
As far as I know PTStitcher never supported cubic QTVR movies which
where introduced with QT 5 (if I'm right). The example stitcher
script says:
# QTVR Apple QTVR-panomovie. Use only with f1
Furthermore (at least on windows) the QTVR switch creates a .BMP file
which has to be run through another utility to create the actual
movie.
> IVR_java
> PAN
Are plugins for these formats really still available? I don't think
so. Should be pretty obsolete.
> VRML
I doubt, this is (and was) used very much either...
Fisheye support is much more important!
best regards
--
Erik Krause
Resources, not only for panorama creation:
http://www.erik-krause.de/

Hi all,
> yuval> Downloaded. Do I need to read also the rest of the
> yuval> document, or can I start with the QTVR format and at
> yuval> the end of the reading know more or less what bits and
> yuval> bytes go into a QTVR file=3F
>=20
> I really don't know ;) I have only scanned it.=20
For the FreePV viewer, I had the pleasure to improved the basic QTVR parse=
r shipped with PangeaVR to read most QTVR files encountered in the wild. Q=
uicktime .mov is a quite complicated format, with many ways to specify the=
same idea. (The structure of a tiff file is simple, in comparison...). Yo=
u can use dumpster.exe to look at the Atom tree of mov files.
http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/
Note that this does not show you the QTVR data atoms, they are stored as d=
ata of the 'pano' track.
It will take some time to get everything right.
Hmm, but maybe Thomas can provide you with a version of the pano2qtvr back=
end for your usecase=3F
> yuval> difficulties with a set of TIFF cubefaces that would
> yuval> crash Pano2QTVR and I would prefer to see my process
> yuval> (and the tools that I am using) moving to support the
> yuval> PNG format as it has the same features I need from
> yuval> TIFF (16bit / alpha transparency) without the quirks.
>=20
> PNG is supposed to be supported, but I have never really worked with
> it. I am not even sure how the alpha channel gets included in the PNG
> (if it does).
PNG can store 8 and 16 bit pixels with and without alpha channels. Offsets=
like in the cropped tiff files can also be stored in PNG files.
Imagemagick should be able to convert from tiff -> png.
ciao
Pablo
=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F=5F
Viren-Scan f=FCr Ihren PC! Jetzt f=FCr jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos.
Gleich testen! http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/=3Fmc=3D022222

yuval> Downloaded. Do I need to read also the rest of the
yuval> document, or can I start with the QTVR format and at
yuval> the end of the reading know more or less what bits and
yuval> bytes go into a QTVR file?
I really don't know ;) I have only scanned it.
yuval> I am no longer good at C++, but I might write a php
yuval> script to combine the cubefaces into it as a prototype
yuval> for you guys to translate into C++ ...
I would suggest you start by scanning a QTVR file, just outputing the
names of the different records. It will help you understand the
format.
It will be great if you are able to create a php QTVR script. It will
be easy to add support for it withing panotools.
yuval> Thanks for the hint. Looks like a very powerful tool.
yuval> I've been using ImageMagick to convert the TIFF output
yuval> of PTStitcher (still have not got around to replace it
yuval> with PTMender neither on the development Windoze
yuval> desktop nor on the production FreeBSD server) and
yuval> apply a mask to save the result as PNG. Not sure how
yuval> much different netpbm would be over ImageMagick. I was
yuval> hoping for native PNG support in all the tools across
yuval> my workflow to skip the conversion and dump the TIFF
yuval> format all together. As stated earlier, I had
The TIFFs are created as part of the processing (by PTmender). Even if
the output is PNG or JPG, a bunch of TIFFs are created.
yuval> difficulties with a set of TIFF cubefaces that would
yuval> crash Pano2QTVR and I would prefer to see my process
yuval> (and the tools that I am using) moving to support the
yuval> PNG format as it has the same features I need from
yuval> TIFF (16bit / alpha transparency) without the quirks.
PNG is supposed to be supported, but I have never really worked with
it. I am not even sure how the alpha channel gets included in the PNG
(if it does).
dmg
--
Daniel M. German "The only bad press is an obituary."
Dennis Rodman
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

Thanks a lot, Daniel!
--- "Daniel M. German" <dmg@...> wrote:
>
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QTFF/qtff.pdf#search=%22quicktime%20spec%22
>
> It contains an entire section on the quicktime VR
> format.
Downloaded. Do I need to read also the rest of the
document, or can I start with the QTVR format and at
the end of the reading know more or less what bits and
bytes go into a QTVR file?
I am no longer good at C++, but I might write a php
script to combine the cubefaces into it as a prototype
for you guys to translate into C++ ...
> yuval> Another format I am missing is PNG,
> JUst use jpegtopnm and pnmtopng (both part of the
> netpbm package
> http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/)
Thanks for the hint. Looks like a very powerful tool.
I've been using ImageMagick to convert the TIFF output
of PTStitcher (still have not got around to replace it
with PTMender neither on the development Windoze
desktop nor on the production FreeBSD server) and
apply a mask to save the result as PNG. Not sure how
much different netpbm would be over ImageMagick. I was
hoping for native PNG support in all the tools across
my workflow to skip the conversion and dump the TIFF
format all together. As stated earlier, I had
difficulties with a set of TIFF cubefaces that would
crash Pano2QTVR and I would prefer to see my process
(and the tools that I am using) moving to support the
PNG format as it has the same features I need from
TIFF (16bit / alpha transparency) without the quirks.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

yuval levy twisted the bytes to say:
yuval> --- "Daniel M. German" <dmg@...> wrote:
>> Compared to Linux PTsticher, these are the formats
>> missing:
>>
>> QTVR
>> IVR_java
>> VRML
>> PAN
>>
>> Other than that, PTmender lacks:
>>
>> * Feathering
>> * Fisheye lenses support
>>
>> In my opinion, QTVR is the most important format
>> missing.
yuval> As a user I second the request for QTVR output
yuval> support. Possibly tiled as well, and with a preview
yuval> track if it is not asking too much.
here is the format spec:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QTFF/qtff.pdf#search=%22quicktime%20spec%22
It contains an entire section on the quicktime VR format.
yuval> Another format I am missing is PNG, for it has alpha
yuval> transparency without the quirks of TIFF and can be
yuval> used directly for the web.
JUst use jpegtopnm and pnmtopng (both part of the netpbm package
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/)
>> So the question is, how do we implement it? I have
>> seen some
>> documentation about the quicktime format from Apple,
>> but it is not straightforward.
yuval> Any links to the qt format description?
yuval> Yuv
yuval> __________________________________________________
yuval> Do You Yahoo!?
yuval> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
yuval> http://mail.yahoo.com
--
Daniel M. German "You cannot have the success without
H. G. Hasler -> the failures."
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

--- "Daniel M. German" <dmg@...> wrote:
> Compared to Linux PTsticher, these are the formats
> missing:
>
> QTVR
> IVR_java
> VRML
> PAN
>
> Other than that, PTmender lacks:
>
> * Feathering
> * Fisheye lenses support
>
> In my opinion, QTVR is the most important format
> missing.
As a user I second the request for QTVR output
support. Possibly tiled as well, and with a preview
track if it is not asking too much.
Another format I am missing is PNG, for it has alpha
transparency without the quirks of TIFF and can be
used directly for the web.
> So the question is, how do we implement it? I have
> seen some
> documentation about the quicktime format from Apple,
> but it is not straightforward.
Any links to the qt format description?
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Bruno Postle twisted the bytes to say:
Bruno> On Fri 06-Oct-2006 at 08:41 -0700, Yuval Levy wrote:
>>
>> I have a few questions about PTMender. Is there an
>> official documentation somewhere?
Bruno> This is updated, but it isn't what you would call proper
Bruno> documentation and lists things that are still only available via
Bruno> PTStitcher:
Bruno> http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/panotools/trunk/libpano/doc/stitch.txt
The main challenge of getting PTmender to be a true replacement of
PTstitcher is that some of the output formats are not easy to
implement in PTmender. They are:
# PICT pict-file on macs, bmp-file on win (default)
# PAN SmoothMove movie. Use only with f2.
# IVR LivePicture IVR movie
# cylindrical (format f1) or spherical (format f2)
# IVR_java LivePicture Java Panorama,
# cylindrical (format f1) or spherical (format f2)
# VRML VRML background node, use only with f2 for panoramas, or
# VRML-object for PTStereo
# QTVR Apple QTVR-panomovie. U
# 3DMF 3DMF-object (PTStereo).
Now, not all these formats are supported in the Linux version of
PTstitcher (which I have used as a reference for PTmender). Compared
to Linux PTsticher, these are the formats missing:
QTVR
IVR_java
VRML
PAN
Other than that, PTmender lacks:
* Feathering
* Fisheye lenses support
In my opinion, QTVR is the most important format missing. I also think
that we should implement a command line utility that creates them, so
it is widely available .
So the question is, how do we implement it? I have seen some
documentation about the quicktime format from Apple, but it is not
straightforward.
--
Daniel M. German "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable
Arthur C. Clarke -> from magic."
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

On Fri 06-Oct-2006 at 08:41 -0700, Yuval Levy wrote:
>
>I have a few questions about PTMender. Is there an
>official documentation somewhere?
This is updated, but it isn't what you would call proper
documentation and lists things that are still only available via
PTStitcher:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/panotools/trunk/libpano/doc/stitch.txt
It is the PTmender equivalent of this nona document:
><http://hugin.sourceforge.net/docs/nona/nona.txt&gt;.
>What kind of QTVR does PTMender support? cylindric and
>cubic? sub-tiles? if it does not support cubic /
>sub-tiles, would it make sense to add support? to
>PTMender? to nona? to both?
Neither PTmender or nona create QTVR files.
I'd rather prepare JPEG tiles separately and feed them into a
command-line QTVR assembler tool (doesn't exist as far as I know).
--
Bruno

Hi all,
I have a few questions about PTMender. Is there an
official documentation somewhere?
I understand it is a drop-in replacement for
PTStitcher, so I looked for PTStitcher docu. The best
I came across is at
<http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/readme/index.html&gt;
which is well written but three years old. I am not
sure it is complete. For example I do not find
anything about value "TIFF_m" for parameter n or value
3 (full frame fish eye) for parameter f at
<http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/readme/p_line.html&gt;
Does PTMender support all what is documented there?
<http://wiki.panotools.org/PTmender&gt; says it does
support f3 and n"QTVR".
One feature I find intriguing in the old ptstitcher
docu is n"QTVR". It says it works only with f1 -
cylindrical projection, so I guess it works only for
cylindrical QTVR and not for cubic? does this apply to
PTMender too? nona's documentation doe snot mention
n"QTVR" at all
<http://hugin.sourceforge.net/docs/nona/nona.txt&gt;.
What kind of QTVR does PTMender support? cylindric and
cubic? sub-tiles? if it does not support cubic /
sub-tiles, would it make sense to add support? to
PTMender? to nona? to both?
Excuse my ignorance - don't PTMender and nona overlap
in functionality? Without intention to offend any
sensitivity, wouldn't it make sense to join forces on
a single stitching engine that achieves the
functionalities of both?
I read
<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.misc.ptx/4622/&gt;
and I really cant follow the argument that PTMender is
to nona what PTstitcher is to nona.
The Panotools Wiki qualifies both PTMender and nona as
drop in replacements for PTstitcher.
<http://wiki.panotools.org/Nona&gt;
<http://wiki.panotools.org/PTmender&gt;
So if nona is a replacement to PTstitcher, is it also
a replacement to PTMender? should I use nona instead
of PTMender?
My goal is to manipulate images server-side, no GUI,
possibly on a FreeBSD server. Within that
manipulation, I'd like to create QTVRs, possibly
without having to install and configure
wine/QuickTime.
Yuv
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Bruno Postle twisted the bytes to say:
Bruno> On Mon 02-Oct-2006 at 13:04 -0700, JD Smith wrote:
>>
>> It's not as nice as the ideal workflow:
>>
>> 1. Edit alphas in the multi-layer TIFF.
>> 2. Save it.
>> 3. Feed to enblend.
Bruno> My ideal workflow would be orientated around saving storage space,
Bruno> so I'd like to keep the edited masks as separate files - Compressed
Bruno> they should be just a few kB even for a huge panorama. After
Bruno> stitching a panorama I'd like just these files remaining:
Bruno> a. bzip2 compressed RAW files
Bruno> b. hugin pto file
Bruno> c. deflate compressed mask files
Bruno> d. JPEG panorama
Bruno> e. QTVR panorama (if the image is spherical)
Bruno> Everything else would be deleted.
Bruno> If I ever need to recreate the 180MB 16bit full quality TIFF, then
Bruno> it can easily be generated from these stored files automatically.
I fully agree that the masks are what stops a full automatic
recreation of the panorama. I can write a program that extracts them
and one that replaces them (or adds them).
tifftools needs to be split from panotools, (panotools will require
some routines from tifftools).
In reality panotools should only worry about panorama
transformation. Anything else is beyond its realm.
I think panotools should only create TIFF_m. I don't like monolithic
applications that want to worry about every possibility. It will be
easier to maintain, too.
Tifftools should worry about how to process tiff files on their
own right.
Also, the colour blending (PTblender) should be split into its own
application.
This way anybody can craft their own workflow around the tools.
--
Daniel M. German " Despite its apparent simplicity, the pen could claim to be the most significant technology ever developed."
The Economist
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

Ok, this is a libpano question, but I think it more important to ask
to the hugin users.
The question is related to alpha masks in TIFF and Photoshop files.
Currently PTmender creates one mask per image. If the format is
tiff_mask and psd_mask an "optimal" mask is computed (optimal is a
misnomer, but it is something that I have plans to improve) and this
is the final alpha channel in the TIFF (and PSD).
The problem with this approach is that the original mask of the image
is lost. Perhaps this is most visible in the PSD_mask output, where
the alpha channel has the "good" pixels, but the region outside the
photo is black. There is no easy way to modify the mask without also
removing this "black" region from the image.
My proposal is to change TIFF_mask output from 4 channels to 5
channels. The 4th channel will be the alpha mask of the entire
remapped image (identical to tiff_m). The 5th channel will be the
"optimal" mask.
I have explored the creation of files with more than 4 channels and it
is not a problem for the tiff library. In fact I already have an
implementation for the tiff_mask using 5 layers (but the rest of the
logic in PTmender needs to be updated to handle flattening of these
TIFFs (panotools is very hardcoded to TIFFs of 3 and 4 channels) and
the creation of PSD_mask.
Does anybody know how enblend will react to these types of files? To
lessen the impact of the changes I will also write a program to strip
the 4th channel in these 5 channel files. This will return them to the
original TIFF_mask output format.
Any comments?
--
daniel
--
Daniel M. German "The energy of the world is constant.
Rudolf Clausius -> Its entropy tends to a maximum."
http://turingmachine.org/http://silvernegative.com/
dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .